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Aristotle's Science of the Best Regime

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Robert C. Bartlett
Robert C. Bartlett
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
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Abstract

Aristotle's science of the best regime brings to light an almost forgotten hut by no means settled quarrel between reason and faith concerning the best way of life and its political embodiments. Aristotle denies the claimed superiority of divine legislation, in favor of the guidance supplied by unaided reason. Aristotle knows, however, as contemporary political science may not, that only by confronting the divine law as such can science avoid collapsing into dogmatism. The present study attempts to sketch that confrontation by considering Aristotle's analysis of justice—the concern fundamental to both Aristotle and divine law—in order simply to encourage the kind of reflection necessary to reinvigorate rationalism, or that which, according to Aristotle, is closest to the divine in man.

Type
Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 88 , Issue 1 , March 1994 , pp. 143 - 155
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1994

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